Joseph F. Smith - Life Summary (Kingdom, elders, mission, doctrine)

[Bishka]

The number in the parentheses are Joseph F. Smith's age when those events happened.

February 9, 1800 - Hyrum Smith, Joseph F. Smith's father born in Tunbridge, Vermont

July 21, 1802 - Mary Fielding, his mother, born in Honeydon, England

December 24, 1837 - Marriage of Hyrum Smith and Mary Fielding, Kirtland, Ohio

November 13, 1838 - Joseph F. Smith born in Far West, Missouri

June 27, 1844 - Joseph and Hyrum Smith martyred, Carthage Jail(age 5)

September 1846 - September 1848 - Mary Fielding Smith family treks from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Salt Lake Valley (7-9)

May 21, 1852 - Joseph F. Smith baptized by President Heber C. Kimball(13)

September 21, 1852 - Mary Fielding Smith dies in Salt Lake City(13)

1854-1857 - Serves mission to Sandwich Island(Hawaii). (15-19)

1860-1863 - Serves mission to Great Britain(21-24)

1864 - Special mission to Hawaii with Elders Ezra T. Benson and Lorenzo Snow(25-26)

1865-1866 - Member of territorial legislature

July 1, 1866 - Ordained an Apostle and Counselor to the First Presidency(27)

October 8, 1867 - Set apart as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles(28)

1874-1875, 1877 - Two terms as president of the European Mission(35-36, 38)

August 29, 1877 - Death of President Brigham Young, Salt Lake City(38)

October 19, 1880 - Sustained as Counselor to PResident John Taylor(41)

July 25, 1887 - Death of PResident John Taylor, Kaysville, Utah(48)

April 7, 1889 - Sustained as Second Counselor to President Wilford Woodruff(50)

September 24, 1890, October 6; Manifesto received; Official Declaration 1 accepted by the Church(51)

April 6, 1893 - Dedication of the Salt Lake Temple by President Wilford Woodruf(54)

September 2, 1898 - President Wilford Woodruff dies, San Francisco, California(59)

September 13, 1898 - Sustained as Second Counselor to President Lorenzo Snow(59)

October 10, 1901 - Death of President Lorenzo Snow, Salt Lake City (62)

October 17, 1901 - Ordained and set apart as President of the Church(62)

November 10, 1901 - Sustained as President of the Church in a special conference(62)

July-September 1906 - First President of the Church to tour Europe during his administration(67)

November 1909 - First Presidency issues the doctrinal exposition "The Origin of Man"(70)

1911 - YMMIA(Young Men's Mutual Interest Association) adopts the Boy Scout program, name MIA Scouts(72)

1912: Granite Seminary in Salt Lake City is the site of the first released-time classes.

1913: YWMIA(Young Womans Mutual Interest Association) adopts the Campfire Girls summer program; 1914, replaced with year-round Beehive Girls program(74)

July 27, 1913 - Dedicates the site for the Alberta Temple(74)

April 27, 1915 - The First Presidency urges members to hold regular family home evenings(76)

June 30, 1916 - First Presidency and the Twelve issue the doctrinal exposition "The Father and the Son"(77)

October 3, 1918 - Receives the vision of the redemption of the dead, which became Doctrine and Covenants 138(79)

November 19, 1918 - Dies in the Beehive House, Salt Lake City(80)

1918: En-of-year statistics: 495,962 members; 75 stakes; 839 wards; 22 missions

Today (2006) there are over 12 million members.

[Bishka]

Tidbits about Joseph F. Smith

*Joseph F. Smith was the sixth President of the church and the last President to have personally known the Prophet Joseph Smith

*The first child of Mary Fielding and Hyrum Smith, born on 13 November 1838 in Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri.

*Two weeks before Joseph F. Smiths birth, his father (Hyrum Smith) ahd been taken prisoner by a mob and unjustly incarcerated.

*Joseph F. Smith was not six year old when his uncle Joseph Smith and his father Hyrum laid down their lives for the kingdom of God. They were assassinated on 27 June 1844 by a violent mob.

*Joseph F. drove one of the family's ox teams into Salt Lake Valley on 23 September 1848. He was nine years old.

*His mother died at age 51, after a short illness. He was thirteen years old and was motherless and fatherless.

*Joseph F. Smith was called on a mission and arrived at Honolulu in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) on 27 September 1854, about six weeks before his 16th birthday!

*Joseph F. left Hawaii in October 1857 and accepted increasing responsiblities Brigham Young assigned to him. He served a mission to England (1860-63) and a second mission to Hawaii (1864). After his return to Salt Lake City late in 1864, he was employed in the Church Historian's Office.

[Bishka]

*In 1866, at the direction of President Young, 28-year old Joseph F. Smith was ordained an Apostle and called as a counselor to the First Presidency.

*In addition to other responsibilities as a member of the Quroum of the Twelve, he served two terms as president of the European Mission (1874-1875, 1877)

*On 6 April 1853, at age 14, he had witnessed the laying of the cornerstones for the Salt Lake Temple, and on 6 April 1892, at age 53, eh offered the prayer for the laying of the temple's capstone.

*Church membership nearly doubled during President Smith's admistration, from 278,645 in 1901, to 495,962 in 1918.